Sometimes a unique moment just happens. On a shallow reef, at a dive site called Crystal Tiger, the late afternoon dive promised just as much shark activity as earlier in the day. With the change in tide, we had clear blue water and lots of Caribbean reef sharks, lemon sharks, and the occasional cautious approach from the king of the heap – the Tiger shark.

For this trip, I had mounted a small compact camera (in an underwater housing) on top of my main camera rig, with the view to taking some video clips–just for storytelling. By chance, I had started to record just a few moments before a large tiger shark showed up and was curious enough to come close. And close it came, as you will see from the video clip, and its curiosity reached the point where it wanted to have a feel of the lighting arms on my housing. The instant just before that moment gave me a beautiful composition of this magnificent creature, in the afternoon light, and it is an enduring moment which I treasure.

THAT_TigerShark_moment from John Collins on Vimeo.

Nikon D2Xs rig with Canon G12 on top
JC in action: Photo by Jim Abernethy

View more images of Sharks of the Bahama Banks here.